Johann Jacob Schütz (1640–1690), a lawyer and close friend of Pietism’s founder Philipp Spener, published this hymn in Frankfurt in 1675 in his Christliches Gedenck-Büchlein. Its theology remains perfectly sound Lutheran doctrine—though Schütz himself eventually left Lutheranism under Spener’s influence, a detail that surprises singers who know the text well. One stanza especially rewards attention: the image of God guiding His people “with a mother’s hands” is not a modern translator’s concession to inclusive language; it was original to Schütz’s seventeenth-century German (mit Mutter-Händen leitet er die seine). Frances Elizabeth Cox provided the English translation in 1864. Of the original nine stanzas, the Lutheran Service Book uses five.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026